GT

The greatest challenge in entering the context of [mystical discourse]
lies in disabusing ourselves of this spatial and temporal orientation.
Every text must be interpreted in the here and now, because this is
the only reality. The past is memory and the future is hope, but the
present is everything real.


So when you are asked what God did before God created the world, just
smile. And when you are asked what life will be like after we die,
just smile ...


Ron Miller

Comfortably numb

Hello,
Is there anybody in there
Just nod if you can hear me
Is there anyone at home
Come on now 
I hear you're feeling down
I can ease your pain
And get you on your feet again
Relax
I'll need some information first
Just the basic facts
Can you show me where it hurts


There is no pain, you are receding
A distant ship smoke on the horizon
You are coming through in waves
Your lips move but I can't hear what you're saying
When I was a child I had a fever
My hands felt just like two balloons
Now I've got that feeling once again
I can't explain, you would not understand
This is not how I am 
I have become comfortably numb

Okay 
Just a little pin prick
There'll be no more aaaaaaaah! 
But you may feel a little sick
Can you stand up?
I do belive it's working, good
That'll keep you going through the show 
Come on it's time to go.

There is no pain you are receding 
A distant ship smoke on the horizon
You are only coming through in waves 
Your lips move but I can't hear what you're saying 
When I was a child 
I caught a fleeting glimpse
Out of the corner of my eye
I turned to look but it was gone
I cannot put my finger on it now
The child is grown
The dream is gone
And I have become comfortably numb

beati

beati pauperes spiritu quoniam ipsorum est regnum caelorum

beati mites quoniam ipsi possedebunt terram

beati qui lugent quoniam ipsi consolabauntur

beati qui esurient et sitiunt iustitiam quoniam ipsi saturabuntur

beati misericordes quia ipsi misericordiam consequentur

beati mundo corde quoniam ipsi Deum videbunt

beati pacifici quoniam filii Dei vocabuntur

beati qui persecutionem patiuntur propter iustitiam quoniam ipsorum est regnum caelorum

ego sum

ego sum panis vitae qui veniet ad me non esuriet et qui credit in me non sitiet umquam


ego sum lux mundi qui sequitur me non ambulabit in tenebris sed habebit lucem vita


ego sum ostium per me siquis introierit salvabitur et ingredietur et egredietur et pascua inveniet


ego sum pastor bonus bonus pastor animam suam dat pro ovibus


ego sum resurrectio et vita qui credit in me et si mortuus fuerit vivet


ego sum via et veritas and vita nemo venit ad Patrem nisi per me


ego sum vitis vera et Pater meus agricola est

Just be

Just be. That sounds simple enough. How can we do anything other than be? Being isn't something we do, which is what makes just being challenging in our culture of doers. Being isn't particularly respected among egos. We have to be somebody, and the way we get to be somebody is by doing: You are somebody who has done this or that. The person and persona are created by doing, not by being. However, when all the accomplishments and labels are stripped away, all that's left is a sense of being, of existing, in this simple moment. Such an experience of pure being is the gift that happens just before...


Gina Lake

Translation and transformation

In a series of books (e.g., A Sociable God, Up from Eden, and The Eye of Spirit), I have tried to show that religion itself has always performed two very important, but very different, functions. One, it acts as a way of creating meaningfor the separate self: it offers myths and stories and tales and narratives and rituals and revivals that, taken together, help the separate self make sense of, and endure, the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. This function of religion does not usually or necessarily change the level of consciousness in a person; it does not deliver radical transformation. Nor does it deliver a shattering liberation from the separate self altogether. Rather, it consoles the self, fortifies the self, defends the self, promotes the self. As long as the separate self believes the myths, performs the rituals, mouths the prayers, or embraces the dogma, then the self, it is fervently believed, will be "saved"--either now in the glory of being God-saved or Goddess-favored, or in an after-life that insures eternal wonderment. But two, religion has also served--in a usually very, very small minority--the function of radical transformation and liberation. This function of religion does not fortify the separate self, but utterly shatters it--not consolation but devastation, not entrenchment but emptiness, not complacency but explosion, not comfort but revolution--in short, not a conventional bolstering of consciousness but a radical transmutation and transformation at the deepest seat of consciousness itself. http://wilber.shambhala.com/html/misc/spthtr.cfm/

God, beyond our dreams

God, beyond our dreams, you have stirred in us a memory,
you have placed your powerful spirit in the hearts of humankind.

All around us, we have known you;
all creation lives to hold you,
In our living and our dying
we are bringing you to birth.

God, beyond all names, you have made us in your image,
we are like you, we reflect you, we are woman, we are man.

God, beyond all words, all creation tells your story,
you have shaken with our laughter, you have trembled with our tears.

God, beyond all time, you are laboring within us;
we are moving, we are changing, in your spirit ever new.

God of tender care, you have cradled us in goodness,
you have mothered us in wholeness, you have loved us into birth.

Bernadette Farrell